He has had some success everywhere (except the NBA). Crazy that he coached KState to 4 tournament appearances in the late 80s prior to the existence of the big 12 .
Illinois basketball
- Thread starter OrlandoKeith
- Start date
You do know that a year, as in coach of the year, so only for 1 season right?
Do coaches not get credit for their recruits?
Facts: 2 5***** but one of them was a reclassification. Should be in high school. 1 transfer from Cannisius. And some turds that won 8 games last year.
Chicken salad out of chicken shit. Amazing.
But you'd probably rather have Underwood. Cant keep his best recruit on the court (probably transfer). Top recruiting class ever was 43? Nice.
Actually Tilmon wasn't a 5 star, he was a 4 star. So Cuonzo added a grad transfer, a 4 star big man who was considered a project by most and a high school senior who reclassified to what many considered the worst power 5 team in the country.
His team was projected to finish 5th in the SEC and be a borderline tourney team and that was before he lost the #1 recruit in the nation and the only two true point guards on his roster. Take MPJ, Harris, and Phillips off the roster and we'd been probably been projected to finish somewhere between 10-12 in the SEC and would not have been given a shot to make the tourney. He's done a phenomenal job this year and if it weren't for a phantom foul on a three against Florida and missed free throws down the stretch against LSU and Ole Miss he'd be firmly in the conversation for NCOY. He's been excellent this year, not even worth debating.
NCOY? Laughing
The best thing about being in the basement, is there’s only one way to go. I would argue Self winning the Big 12 for a 14th straight year, with arguably his worst team while at Kansas, is by far the larger accomplishment. What’s more impressive, winning a few more games than you did the previous year, or maintaining the highest level of consistency?
I’ll take the conference championships.
Lol Doesn't surprises me you aren't able to read. Yes, he would absolutely be in the conversation for NCOY if he took one of the worst teams in the country to a shared conference title in one season. And going from worst to first in one season is undoubtedly more impressive than a team that was preseason favorites in their league winning it.
A phantom call and a couple missed free throws doesn’t take a coach “firmly in the conversation,” to nowhere near the conversation. You use the word “if” like he actually did those things. He didn’t go from “worst to first.” You’re in 6th place in your conference, 1 game above .500 (in conference). You recently lost to Mississippi and LSU, and got waxed by UK. COY candidates don’t do those things.
lol are you slow? I know all of that, it was in the post you quoted and responded to. As I said earlier, you must not be able to read, I said IF. I said he'd done a great job this year regardless and if our players hadn't pissed down their legs a few games late he'd be in that conversation. You then responded and argued something I never said and somehow made this about Bill Self. You are either a complete moron or Mizzou is still occupying so much space in your dome you can't see straight. Seeing as how Mizzou can never be mentioned on this board without you commenting I'd guess it's a combination of both.
You’re definitely one of the more mature posters on this board. I’m continually impressed with your witty insults. Keep up the good work, boss.
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Haha you of all people are trying to pull the maturity card? That's rich. Sorry if I hurt you're feelings for calling you out for completely misrepresenting what I said. When you try and troll as much as you do you don't get to play the maturity card. And I honestly don't even mind it, I just think if you're going to do it so much you should at least be good at it.
Well...that doesn’t make much sense if you think about it, because Northwestern itself borders the city of Chicago and they have always sucked. DePaul has been a disaster for close to 20 years now, UIC sucks, Loyola hasn’t been to the tournament 50 years. U of I is 2 hours away, further away from Chicago than Notre Dame is. Chicago isn’t doing anything for anybody in state these days really. How’s the city of New York doing for St John’s, Rutgers, Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc?
.....I’m kinda done predicting this or that about Illinois basketball. A series of bad blunders ranging from Bruce Weber getting the job, Bruce Weber getting 3-4 extra years than deserved, bad AD hire Mike Thomas, and a terrible hire in John Groce have all piled together in conjunction with some disastrous recruiting misses to get to this point ...couple of years ago I’d now be telling you all Underwood is a stud and the rise and return to glory is coming!....but, I won’t, because for all I know maybe he’s no good either....or just no good in Champaign.
I think it is kinda funny for Mizzou fans to be smack talking though...worst Illini season in 20 years yet they still waxed that ass down in StL didn’t they?
They're going to eat a lot of crow next season. MPJ gone. Jontay getting 1st round projections now, possibly gone. Kassius Robertson gone. Jordan Barnett gone. Blake Harris gone.
You think this Illinois team is bad? There's a good possibility next season's Missouri team is equally bad, if not worse.
The fifth year market can cure a lot of ills. Hell thats what Illinois is hoping for. Tilmon will be a good player next year.
It can. Kassius certainly did for them this year, and I expect Jontay to return at this point. I doubt they hit on another player like Kassius, and Barnett is a really versatile, solid piece that will be tough to replace.
I'm not going to bash on Cuonzo. But i think the improvement has as much to do with the previous coach as the new coach. Mizzou was atrociously bad the last couple of years....much worse than your talent. That was poor coaching.
I dont think cuonzo is a good coach. But this isn’t the year to bash him. He’s done a solid job.
Cuonzo got off to a hot start at Cal too with some instant sizzle.....and then in a few years the pipeline was dry and he bailed before things really bottomed out.
Have ya seen Cal lately and the disaster he left behind? He has a better chance at not quite going that far into the dumpster at a Mizzou but he’s a guarantee of nothing.
Have ya seen Cal lately and the disaster he left behind? He has a better chance at not quite going that far into the dumpster at a Mizzou but he’s a guarantee of nothing.
As an Illini fan, it is just too hard for me to throw rocks at others when we live in our glass shack.
I’m not gonna disagree with your overall point but Blake Harris contributed nothing to this season so I don’t know why you listed him (same with MPJ besides bringing his little brother and raising expectations) lol
Also if Jontay is solidly a first rounder he is gone but if there is a chance he falls to the 2nd round he’s probably staying
And Barnett is not very versatile. He is a great spot up shooter and is pretty athletic but he can’t dribble to save his life so he isn’t really able to use that athleticism unless he gets an oop in transition. He just lurks around the 3PT line so he either goes off from back there or you forget he is even on the court.
This has been my thing w/ Martin. He hits on some huge targets in recruiting, but never builds that foundation with some solid 4 year guys to go along w/ his studs. He badly needs to land that class of solid targets that can grow and bring stability to the program, then complement those with the stud classes he occasionally grabs.
I thought he got a raw deal at UT, but he seemed to bail on Cal b/c he knew they were gonna be shit moving forward. Mizzou is a good landing spot for him and I'm interested to see what he can do there. Seems to me that he's a lot of sizzle without a ton of substance, but as a Purdue guy, I'm rooting for him.
He's at the least a solid shooter. I haven't watched him closely enough to know if he's good on defense, but he was an efficient guy for you guys this year. Most teams would take his production.
And Blake Harris had potential moving forward. He was a freshman this year. He wasn't spectacular, but he's better than nothing moving forward. I do think he had the potential of being recruited over in the long term.
I agree on Jontay. A couple big games could bump him up, but he looks like a guy that needs another year.
I was really intoxicated at the game, but if memory serves me correctly, Mizzou's only lead was when the game was 0-2.
Down 20 in the first half. It was like...they had never seen pressure defense in their lives
No, we just had a poor night shooting the ball, missed looks we've consistently hit all year. Almost every team in the country has nights like that and when you do you normally lose, even when playing an inferior team. But congrats on the win.
Mizzou is awful against pressure defense, that’s no secret. They played the worst half of the entire season that first half and then came back and made it a tight game. If they play even decent the first half they win. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve they still lost though. I would take making the tourney over winning that game.
That's a good choice because you guys haven't had much luck in that game.
Didn’t we win 5 in a row before you guys reeled off these last 4 or 5?
Edit: Sorry it was 4. Sadly that’s 1/3 of our total lol
We'll know pretty soon with the local talent available. Lot of potential, most of which will be 4 year guys. Since the 2012 season, Mizzou has graduated one 4 year player (Ryan Rosburg...yeah), and will fail to do so again this year. So I agree with you on that point.
Next year will in all likelihood be a step back, which is surprising, when you consider that the team, as currently constructed, has 5 holdovers from an 8-24 squad, a freshman 4 star big who averages 20 minutes a game, a high school senior and a grad transfer from Canisius. And that was no easy task with the dogshit culture that we had around here for the past 3-4 years.
The high school senior just so happens to be a 5*. Kassius was a big surprise though. He balled out.
A lot of next years potential is gonna hinge on if Jontay is back or not. I knew he was good but he has really been the difference between winning and losing. When he scores double figures mizzou is 15-1, when he doesn’t they are 4-10. I expect a step back next year regardless because of the loss of Kassius, that’s gonna be huge, but if Jontay is gone as well then around a .500 season is probably the likely scenario. That is unless Torrence Watson is able to carry a lot of weight as a freshman and KJ Santos fills Barnett’s role.
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